Sunday, October 16, 2016

Trippy weirdness that is Gerard Way’s ‘’Doom Patrol”

Trippy weirdness that
is Gerard Way’s ‘’Doom Patrol”

by rick olivares

Rock
stars writing comic books are nothing new. To name a few, there’s prog rock
outfit Coheed and Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez who gave life to his band’s concept
albums with “Amory Wars”. Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello penned a
12-issue science fiction limited series, “Orchid”, that was published by Dark
Horse Comics. Shock rocker Rob Zombie has written quite a few horror comics with
his most recent one, “Whatever Happened to Baron Von Shock?” released by Image
Comics. Hole frontwoman Courtney Love released a manga-inspired series titled, “Princess
Ai”.

And
most recently, there’s My Chemical Romance’s vocalist Gerard Way who after
penning the excellent “The Umbrella Academy” for Vertigo Comics has been given
his own sandbox in the industry – DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint, a mature
reader’s line where to date, he is writing three of the four announced titles
--- “Doom Patrol”, “Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye”, and “Mother Panic”.

“Shade
the Changing Girl”, the fourth title under the sub-brand, is written by Cecil
Castellucci.

I
picked up “Doom Patrol” because of Way's penchant for producing off-beat
stories. Now the title has been around since the 1960s but it only received a
massive lift in interest and popularity when Scottish writer par excellence
Grant Morrison came on board a couple of decades ago. Since then… well,
everyone feels the weight of Morrison’s work on their hunched shoulders.

Rather
than strike out in another direction, Way and artist Nick Derington walk in
Morrison shoes and make the title their own despite things not making any sense
after two issues in. The story seems disjointed with so many sub-plots going on
but I have only savored every panel of every page. The method to the madness
will eventually be revealed and this book has zoomed to my Top 10 comics from regular
Pull List.

Imagine
Robot Man bursting out a microscopic world that resides in a burrito! Niles
Caulder, the Chief, ad leader of Doom Patrol has so far made weird cameo
appearances. So far, no sightings of Elasti-Woman, Element Woman, and Negative
Man as Emergency Medical Technicians’ Sam and Casey have taken the front row
seat.

But
even if it isn’t the Doom Patrol that I and many others know, it’s a wonderful
and trippy read into the weird. And the last time I got this vibe was reading
Peter Milligan and Michael Allred’s “X-Statix” from Marvel. I somewhat enjoyed Way’s
“The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys” (a six-issue series published by Dark
Horse from mid-2013 to early 2014 that served as a sequel of sorts to My
Chemical Romance’s album, “Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys”.
Yet it didn’t have the impact that “The Umbrella Academy” did in terms of
grabbing me as I thought Fabulous Killjoys got too caught up in its weirdness
and ambitiousness that it ended without a sonic boom. But “Doom Patrol” has a
magic of its own.

Derington’s
art coupled with the psychedelic pastiche of colors by the talented Tamra
Bonvillain greatly add to my “what-is-going-on” bliss.

If
this whole review didn’t make any sense, then go pick up Gerard Way’s “Doom
Patrol”. We can trade non-sequitur’s later.